Yesterday I had a session at a spot we have to hike into, so I had to pack my gear in a travel bag.

I packed an 18m xbow and a 13m xbow with the 18m bar and mistakenly took my 10m sb bar.

After having issues with my 13m not flying correctly in light wind, no power, slow turning, windtips folding in at max power I realized
I had brought the wrong bar. I changed the bar to the 18m one which is 65cm (13m is 55cm and 10m is 48cm). Immediately I noticed great power increase,
and with the bar fully sheeting the wingtips didnt fold in. I couldnt compare to the bar that comes with the kite but overall it seemed as
if the kite was performing much better than stock. Faster turning speed, smoother powerflow.

when you use a smaller bar, it will turn slower. on a big bar it will turn faster, if the kite is real small it gets too twitchy and is unpleasant to fly but changing bars never makes the wingtips fold in.

Run out your bars and check the line lengths. Something here doesn't make sense.

Edt is right - it sounds like your "medium" bar have oversheeted the 13m2 kite (having slightly different front versus rear line lengths at the same depower level) so it tends to fold in, and it will also deliver less power if oversheeted (most often).

So a longer bar will make the kite turn different, and if you like that, just use the longer bar for all kites (I do that now, but having several identical bars)

But what you describe is because the lines on these two bars are not identical, and you have to move one or the other a few knots, till they are.

And apparantly you should move your medium one so it is like the big one it seems

If you pull the bar "too much" (meaning, having an odd trim), your kite will "choke" and not deliver as much power - I assume you know that yourself from light winds ?

This seems to be the case with your 13m2 bar, that you should move the rear lines a few knots out, so a bit longer.
IMO no stock bar/kite setting can be correct, so you always have to fiddle a bit with the trim, on ANY kite and bar

It was definitely an over sheeting issue as the bar i was using is set up for the new switchblades, with needed to be set closer to the kite from a design flaw. It did stall it in the light winds which is why i knew there was a problem.

So the answer is that there are no issues for using a larger bar unless the kite is really small and it becomes a crazy bee? I would damage or compromise the way the kite wears using a larger bar?

shawn13 wrote:So the answer is that there are no issues for using a larger bar unless the kite is really small and it becomes a crazy bee? I would damage or compromise the way the kite wears using a larger bar?

You got it. Some of those 7m kites in 30 knots buzz around like they want to kill you on a 55cm bar, it's not that you can't fly them that way, it's just so tiring on a long bar.

shawn13 wrote:It was definitely an over sheeting issue as the bar i was using is set up for the new switchblades, with needed to be set closer to the kite from a design flaw. It did stall it in the light winds which is why i knew there was a problem.

So the answer is that there are no issues for using a larger bar unless the kite is really small and it becomes a crazy bee? I would damage or compromise the way the kite wears using a larger bar?

No problems at all using a larger bar

Except if it gets a "crazy bee" - but I dont think it will in these big sizes you mention.

Here, in waves, even with 4 and 5 and 6m2 kites, most of us use the long (actually medium) bar for these too, as a wavekite can NEVER be too fast

And for the big kites, we typically use a medium bar, so one length for every kitesize.

The only downside is, when it becomes "clumsy" big, and this is why many of us dont use large but only medium bars, for all kites (in waves 4 to 12m2 and freeride or race with 17m2 kites)

My medium bar is 53cm rearline to rearline, but a little bit different from brand to brand.

A 60cm bar would I never use today, as it feels way too clumsy and big out on the water, and even for the huge kites, it does not actually turn faster with such a beast.